Abstract

Growing large defect-free semiconductornanowires (NW) on lattice-mismatched substrates is important for solar cell applications. Here, we evaluate the critical dimensions of NWs in several strain-releasing growth configurations of interest to experimentalists. We quantify the expected increase in NW volume that may be grown coherently for NWs stacked on lattice mismatched pillars and embedded quantum dot(QD) layers, compared to NWs grown on simple substrates. We also calculate the variations in strain energy for NWs positioned off-axis from embedded QDs, as may occur during fabrication. We predict significant increases in coherent NW volume allowing greater absorption efficiency in solar cells.

P.D.D. and A.N. were supported as part of the Center for Energy Nanoscience, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Award DE-SC0001013. S.S. acknowledges support from the VSoE, NDSEG, and NSF-EAPSI Fellowships. The computations were performed at the High Performance Computing Facility at the University of Southern California.

[Manufacture or treatment of devices consisting of a plurality of solid state components or integrated circuits formed in or on a common substrate or of specific parts thereof; Manufacture of integrated circuit devices or of specific parts thereof, Manufacture or treatment of devices consisting of
a plurality of solid state components or integrated circuits formed in or on a common
substrate or of specific parts thereof; Manufacture of integrated circuit devices or of
specific parts thereof]